Honor + Intrigue

Honor + Intrigue is a new, standalone game from Basic Action Games. Inspired as much by Hollywood as by history, Honor + Intrigue pays homage to the swashbucklers of the silver screen as well as great works such as those of Dumas and Sabatini. Game Masters should feel free to use history as a source of inspiration, not a restriction. True to its inspiration, Honor + Intrigue plays fast and cinematic, leaving the focus on drama and action unfolding. Read more about the game below.

What is Honor + Intrigue?

The game engine is based on Simon Washbourne's acclaimed"Barbarians of Lemuria" rpg, and also contains a number of new features as well, designed for the swashbuckling theme.

17th Century Adventure

Welcome to the Age of the Baroque. It is a time when daring highwaymen ply the coach-roads, musketeers protect the king, and buccaneers cross swords on the high-seas. While the game assumes a 17th century setting, there is also advice to play it in any age from that of Elizabeth to Bonaparte, or even to make a completely fictional setting.

Swashbuckling Action

It is a dangerous and cruel world, but fortunately there are men and women who laugh in the face of danger and fight injustice. They swing into action on chandeliers, and meet their foes with flashing steel and a sharp tongue. The action in Honor + Intrigue should be as high-flying as any swashbuckling movie. Yes, you can swing from a tapestry, crash through the window, lunge at your enemy, and parry his attack all in a single turn!

Intrigue

Among the tangled webs of intrigue, friends can become bitter rivals, enemies can become allies, and lovers can betray you to your death. Rival nobles who smile cordially at one another at court plot against one another in secret, and often, heroes are caught in the middle.

Other Features of the game include:

The power of Fortune to overcome overwhelming odds, and a system that rewards players for taking swift action. After all, Fortune favors the bold...

Fencing rules that emphasize using maneuvers and pressing advantage over your opponent-- you don't simply take turns hitting each other. There are also 9 Dueling Schools, each with their own unique style.

Character's back-stories are created as a part of making the Hero, so every hero has depth.

A Gazetteer containing a brief history of the swashbuckling world, as well as a number of secret societies and powerful groups that can be joined by the heroes, or their enemies...

An optional section covering Mysteries, Horrors, & Wonders, allowing the GM to incorporate alchemy, sorcery, and clockwork-punk mad science into the game. A number of monsters from ghost pirates and faeries to legendary creatures such as the Beast of Gévaudan and the Kraken are also detailed.

Simple dice mechanics and character creation-- so you can dive right into the 17th century action and swing from the chandelier.

Features of this PDF:

Layering allows you to remove the background to save you ink when printing.

Bookmarks let you jump to the section you want in a flash.

A second "Tablet Version" PDF made especially for reading on your tablet, smartphone, or using Preview pdf reader.

An additional PDF with character sheets made for printing as you like. Full Color to Basic Black & White are supported.

I'd love to see this updated to match the new Barbarians of Lemuria rules

Robert DMay 14, 2017 7:10 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I actually don't think it needs to be updated to BoL Mythic. In fact, I think it would be a bad thing. H+I was designed the way it is for a reason. To replace Brawl with Initiative, for example, would cause a big imbalance in the combat system.

What I do want to see is a nice hardback book of H+I.

Patrick SApril 04, 2017 7:11 am UTC

PURCHASER

Would love to see more material for this little gem of a game ...

Chris RApril 06, 2017 7:38 am UTC

PUBLISHER

So would we. There are currently two irons in the fire for this.
1. Is a supplement on Dueling Styles, introducing several new ones, and also an included adventure "Death of a Swordsman".
2. An epic adventure that takes place in the court of a young Louis XIV. Musketeers clash swords with buccaneers from the coast of Marseilles as they race across France to stop a treacherous plot. This adventure will also include art for a GM screen.

Patrick SApril 20, 2017 10:45 am UTC

PURCHASER

Excellent news, thx

E. SApril 02, 2017 3:12 pm UTC

Any news on the POD edition? Best,

Chris RApril 06, 2017 7:34 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Hi, Emilio. I cannot say too much yet, but we are doing a foreign language edition of Honor + Intrigue, and part of that deal involves new art. I had commissioned a new cover to better fit the POD specifications (and to make hard-back available), but in the meantime this foreign edition began to happen. At this point I figured I'd wait for the new art and we could redo the entire interior.

E. SApril 06, 2017 8:25 am UTC

Cool, thanks.

Robert DSeptember 16, 2015 2:29 am UTC

PURCHASER

Hmmm...

"Layering allows you to remove the background to save you ink when printing" - doesn't work.

"Bookmarks let you jump to the section you want in a flash" - bookmarks are missing (other than five of the seven reference sheets at the end of the book).

The rules are still awesome - just that some of the pdf features mentioned don't actually work.

Marcus BSeptember 29, 2015 2:46 pm UTC

PURCHASER

With my older download it works fine but I did a redownload just now and it is broken indeed. Hopefully Chris can fix it.

Chris RSeptember 29, 2015 9:03 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

Sacrebleu, you are right! I checked and it works on my older version; but I redownloaded them from the website and sure enough the features aren't working on the new files. I will dry re-uploading the older files and see if that helps. Not sure what happened to make the files' properties suddenly change like that but here goes. If this doesn't work I will try to get to the bottom of it.

Chris RSeptember 29, 2015 11:43 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

Okay, I seem to have sorted it out. I uploaded the original files and re-downloaded them and they now seem to work fine. Try re-downloading the files and see how they work for you.

Robert DSeptember 30, 2015 12:36 am UTC

PURCHASER

Looking good again Chris - thanks and great job.

Matthew CJune 12, 2015 3:15 am UTC

No print version? $15 for a PDF? And it was $30? I guess you don't want the curious to try this game.

Chris RJune 12, 2015 4:17 am UTC

PUBLISHER

I think there is a misunderstanding here. There is a print version, but we did a print run. We fronted cash to print many books at once instead of doing Print on Demand, which, at the time, seemed like a less reliable option. Currently, there are still some printed books left at Indie Press Revolution (which includes the PDF). Now that the supply from the print run is beginning to dwindle, we are trying to make use of the POD feature here at RPGnow, but it is a process that takes significant time and effort to come to realization. It will eventually become available in this format; but in the meantime, there are copies available to purchase from the print run.

$29.99 is the retail price for the Printed book; $14.99 is the price for the PDF only. That is usually the way a listed discount is expressed in these pages by most publishers (the full price is the print copy, the discount is the PDF; during a sale an item would be further discounted). The decision to reach the price of $14.99 was based on...See more comparison to other core rule books of similar length.

Nathan CNovember 12, 2015 11:46 pm UTC

I want like hell this book in Print and I try to take it on Indie Press Revolution, but, unfortunatly, they do not deliver in Quebec (i'm a French Canadian). Actually Indie Press Revolution is really expensive for International Market, a shame! I can't wait for this POD Version!

E. SMay 03, 2016 1:25 pm UTC

Hi Chris,

I concur with others: buying from Europe here, and getting my hands on a trad printed copy is difficult and/or expensive. I would buy a POD version ANYTIME.

Marcus BAugust 20, 2014 10:11 am UTC

PURCHASER

Any chance of getting this in Print?

Chris RAugust 20, 2014 5:21 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

It is in print. Indie Press Revolution has it, and any FLGS that does business with them should be able to order it for you as well.

Sam HJune 06, 2015 5:52 pm UTC

I'm coming to this nearly a year later, but I think Marcus is referring to a POD edition one can get through DriveThruRPG. It's great that there's a print edition available, but most of us are not interested in going to another site, creating a new account and THEN being able to order what we want. Having a print option here is a lot more attractive, though I realize this does entail a bit more work on the production side. Still something worth considering, however.

Chris RJune 12, 2015 4:22 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Sam, we did a print run, fronting cash to print many books ahead of time. As that supply is beginning to dwindle, we are looking towards POD, but it did not make sense to use POD when there were books already printed. However it is a tedious process (especially for a 1 man shop) and apt to take considerable time. We currently are in the process of getting POD established for another product. Once that is working, H+I will be next in the queue.

Marcus BJune 24, 2015 11:55 am UTC

PURCHASER

I got my version in Print from my favorite online retailer without any problem after asking for it. Good to hear you still work on the PoD though for those without a reliable store!

Michael HSeptember 19, 2013 3:55 am UTC

What? No sale for Talk Like a Pirate Day?
I'll just have to save up my pennies a while longer, me hearties.

Chris RSeptember 19, 2013 4:08 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Way to keep a weather eye, matey! We shall put it on special discount for a week! Tell your scurvy crew!
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?discount=33105

Michael HSeptember 26, 2013 4:08 am UTC

Arr that's the fair wind!

Michael HSeptember 26, 2013 5:03 am UTC

And I went and missed the sale by five minutes! Oh well. Thanks for listening to your customer base!

I'm a fan of swashbuckling style and I've ran a entire campaing in this genre (2 years), but with a homemade system. It worked well, but I didn´t have time to write and test the designed rules, so I decided to find a system to emulate all funny things [...]

Great swashbuckling game. It takes the Barbarians of Lemuria rules and makes them better. Great additions for the genre. I did not feel anything was missing, quiet the contrary. There is so much here I could not decide If I wanted to do Pirates, Musket [...]

This is a good simple system that does what it sets out to do. If you want to play a swasbuckling type campaign where it is possible to take out tons of mooks in a single action but still need to worry about both your dueling skills and you reputation [...]

It's a labor of love and it shows. It contains plenty of very good ideas to implement the swahsbuckling genre at your table. The only thing that does not work for me (YMMV) are the dueling rules, which IMHO slow down combats and are thus not &q [...]

Intro: I have Savage Worlds, and am a huge fan of it, and was thinking about using it for the ubiquity setting of Regime Diabolique, wich i loved but somehow just couldn't get the hang of the system. It is a great system, but just not for me. An [...]

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